It appears that putting P6 on two machines and then networking them allows only one of the two machines to run the program. I assume this is a design feature, however Is there any way to use one copy of P6 on my network so that I can work on one while the other is rendering? Or do I have to get a second new copy of P6 to do this?

Attached Link: http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/870/1/598/

You can download Zone Alarm (you'll have to google for their site). You can then block poser from doing any network activity.

Yas, thank you. I hadn't thought of that. I use zonealarm, and that's a very practial solution

Careful! It's possible to have two copies of the same Poser run on your network using a firewall, but you're not allowed to! You have the right to run ONE instance of Poser per license. I'm not sure, I think it is allowed to install Poser on multiple machines, but I am very sure of the "one instance per license" rule.

"Careful! It's possible to have two copies of the same Poser run on your network using a firewall, but you're not allowed to! You have the right to run ONE instance of Poser per license. I'm not sure, I think it is allowed to install Poser on multiple machines, but I am very sure of the "one instance per license" rule. " True. But you don't even really need zone alarm, since windowsxp sr2 has a built in firewall, and network permission can just be denied on all networked systems. I don't think we'll see the same restrictions in P7, since blocking them is now so easy for even the novice user. Instead, I'd think/hope they would replace it with network rendering ability.

I think svdl's point is most software can be installed to multiple machine, but typically the number of concurrent users has to match the license number. In other words, if you're running two copies of Poser at the same time you should LEGALLY have two licenses. Having said that, even disconnecting your network cable while Poser starts would probably be enough to prevent it from finding other copies on the network. I remember doing this very thing on some ancient Macintosh software.

Yes, but for security reasons, microsoft built a firewall right into Explorer, and with sp2, every time a program wants to "call home" or check the network, you get a popup that asks if you want that program to have network access. Simply answering "no" completly block's poser's validity check. The only options EF would have to get around that now, would be to have a dongle, like lightwave has, or build in networking, and require two separate licenses for it to work. That would at least give people a good incentive to buy more then one copy, but IMHO, if you are using a utility as a consumer, you should be allowed to install on as many home systems as you like. And installing poser on your kid's systems means more poser customers, and more general awareness of poser. Heck, Cliff Bowman's kid is already doing animation at like 3 years old! Granted "Daddy's" system could have P6 installed, and the kids could use D|S, but why force people to either try to cheat the system, or go to another vendor for utility use?

Actually sp2 firewall in XP is not sufficient to block Poser checks. I've been through this.

Well then Mason, please explain to me how come it runs fine on my wife's system? I keep a new install on her system, just for testing my products, and usually have P6 running on my main system at the same time. I create a new runtime, copy that over the network, and then fire up P6 there, and see if everything loads ok, and it does. I don't think you can access another system's runtime folders, but then I haven't tried that at all.

"...but why force people to either try to cheat the system, or go to another vendor..." There are other choices, either use it on one machine at a time or buy additional copies. So you have four choices, three legal and one illegal, that's hardly being forced :-)

You can access runtimes across the network only if you share the parent Poser directory with file sharing turned on for the directory.